The real problem with Darwinism in the public school classroom is that it is often taught in an atheist way. Textbooks by biologists like William Provine and Richard Dawkins routinely assert that evolution has done away with the need for God. The claim is that chance and natural selection have demonstrated that we can have design--or the appearance of design--without a designer. In this sense Darwinism becomes propaganda for atheism.
Typically evangelical Christians seek to counter this atheism by trying to expose the flaws in the Darwinian account of evolution. This explains the appeal of "creation science" and the "intelligent design" (ID) movement. These critiques, however, have not made any headway in the scientific community and they have also failed whenever they have been tried in the courts. Fortunately there is a better way.
Consider this: the First Amendment to the Constitution prohibits public schools from teaching or promoting atheism in any way. How do I know this? Well, the religion clauses of the First Amendment protect the "free exercise" of religion and at the same time forbid the "establishment" of religion. Courts have routinely held that the free exercise clause protects not only religious beliefs but also the absence of religious beliefs. If you are fired from your government job because you are an atheist, your First Amendment rights have been violated. In other words, the term "religion" means not only "religion" but also "atheism."
Yet if the free exercise clause defines religion in a way that includes atheism, then the no-establishment clause must define religion in the same way. So the agencies of government are prohibited from "establishing" not only religion but also atheism. This means that just as a public school teacher cannot advocate Christianity or hand out Bibles to his students, so too public school textbooks and science teachers cannot advocate atheism.
I'd like to see Christian legal groups suing school districts for promoting atheism in the biology classroom. No need to produce creationist or ID critiques of Darwinism. All that is necessary is to parade the atheist claims that have made their way into the biology textbooks and biology lectures. The issue isn't the scientific inadequacy of evolution but the way in which it is being used to undermine religious belief and promote unbelief. If the case can be made that atheism is being advocated in any way, then the textbooks would have to be rewritten and classroom presentations changed to remove the offending material. Schools would be on notice that they cannot use scientific facts to draw metaphysical conclusions in favor of atheism.
In this way Darwinism in the public schools would no longer be a threat to religion in general or Christianity in particular.
Reader Comments ( Page 3 of 68)
31. Whether atheism is a religion or not is irrelevant. Your argument is based on the idea that Darwinism is the same as atheism. It quite simply is not. There are religious biologist who support Darwin just as there are atheists who do. Nice try but no cigar.
MikeF at 12:08PM on Apr 2nd 2008
32. Mokele, thanks, you have reaffirmed my definition of agnosticism. In truth, I was trying to see if the rabid religionists would take a swipe at me.
JefFlyingV at 12:06PM on Apr 2nd 2008
33. tay,
i have never been to a church that"forbid" the discussion of darwinism. quiet the contrary. unless it is discussed on its merits or lack thereof then how could christians rightly approach the subject? i think you atatement is really meant to infer that christians did not broi=ch the suject out of ignorance or fear or some other irrational reason. while from a reason standpoint christianity can be defended quiet well. what cannot be defended very well is atheism. did you know that only 2% of americans are strict atheist!! 2% also 8% are reported to be agnostic. so we give you 10% of the population telling the other 90% they are wrong. guess what? i'll side with the 90%. would you?
brian at 12:06PM on Apr 2nd 2008
34. brian,
Religion by Majority! What a splendid idea!
AndrewV at 12:09PM on Apr 2nd 2008
35. Nicely, sanely put, Mr. Bline.
I looked over biology teaching websites, and have yet to see where they say "there is no god(s)"
The subject doesn't come up in these sites.
So DD is saying, perhaps, that the OMISSION of "god" from these textbooks constitutes atheism.
Sorry, DD, you are making a claim that is simply a lie, unless you can cite the textbooks that state somewhere that there is no god(s).
THAT would be promotion of "atheism".
Linda at 12:09PM on Apr 2nd 2008
36. THE REAL PROBLEM WITH DINESH. You are promoting the fallacy that evolution excludes creation and religion. Last year I watched a video of the author of the biology textbook that is used in most of our high schools. The scientific evidence of evolution is presented in his textbook in an unbiased way. Your lawsuit would fail.
To deny easily verifiable evidence is what may turn many intelligent people away from your religion.
Challenge the science with real facts and evidence. Postulate theories that agree with the evidence. Promote your faith with joy and exuberance but please don't deny evidence that I can see touch and easily understand. Many of us don't understand why you would promote a false conflict between science and religion.
Steve Seivers at 12:12PM on Apr 2nd 2008
37. From Strados' quote " ...There are no permanent shared goals, no communal mindset."
This guy says that is the definition of a religion? Sounds more like a group. I think atheists have a communal mindset: no god or supernatural "being".
Linda at 12:15PM on Apr 2nd 2008
38. Chris G.- *nothing* can be "conclusively" argued, for or against. It seems a very good bet that the Sun will rise in the east tomorrow, but technically that's just a well-confirmed supposition that fits with the best-tested theories we currently have.
But while the origin of the universe is still mysterious, but quite a bit about the origin of humans is known - for example, that we had a common ancestor with chimpanzees. Why else would we have at least six endogenous retroviruses in the same places in our genomes, ones *not* shared with any other primates?
http://vwxynot.blogspot.com/2007/06/endogenous-retroviruses-and-evidence.html
That's the kind of thing that makes common descent so unlikely to be wrong as to not worry about it, like the sun rising in the east.
Ray Ingles at 12:19PM on Apr 2nd 2008
39. Question: How many arms does a blogger from India have?
Answer: Eight personalities. One man or woman to do the work of eight.
Darwin tried and failed to lead us from chaos. It's not intelligent design, it's religion. To say bye-bully. Hello, mob. It's a tennis match.
Mobs and Bullies have created everything, and destroyed everyone.
Joseph at 12:20PM on Apr 2nd 2008
40. Ray Ingles says, "Can anyone point out a clear example of an actual case of this happening in the real world?"
But D'Souza says, "Textbooks by biologists like William Provine and Richard Dawkins routinely assert that evolution has done away with the need for God."
D'Souza MUST have SOME evidence of this... it would be written down in thousands(?) of text books, right?
Cough up, D'Souza!
In other words, "Put up or shut up, D'Souza!"
not-pboyfloyd at 12:22PM on Apr 2nd 2008
41. Dinesh, do you know ANYTHING about science? You sound like an ignoramus when topics of science come up and it's embarrassing to read.
First, true science can't be spun to be 'atheistic' or 'religious'. Science doesn't concern itself with allah, god, ra, aphrodite or baal. You know why? Because once you insert a 'god' into the equation, all bets are off. You can no longer study it from an empirical perspective because the 'answer' to every unknown question would be 'god's (or venus', or ganeshas' or whomever's) ways are 'mysterious' and too complex for humans to understand. Do you get that? Read up about the law of parsimony, for starters. For the love of thor, educate yourself!
Sophia Rox at 12:26PM on Apr 2nd 2008
42. Right on, Dinesh!
I agree with what you say, and I find it quite enlightening.
Previous generations of Christians were too naive and trusting of government authorities and the mainstream media when anti-religious court rulings started appearing after WWII, most heinously in the totally bogus "separation of church and state" concept that is the mantra of the enemies of religion, though it is the antithesis of what is meant in the US Constitution concerning freedom of religion!
The result is that the US government currently favors anti-religious views, enforced by court rulings, and is increasingly hostile towards Christianity--all in the false name of "separation of church and state." Anti-faith is usually favored over faith, especially against Christianity.
I would also point out that as the US has silenced Christianity in the last 60 years, it parallels the new depths of depravity and danger in our culture. For example, abortion, school kids murdering classmates, fatherless child rearing, and out of control sexual activity (and the deadly venereal diseases that accompany that).
The US has arrogantly abandoned Christianity and is reaping the out of control self-destruction that inevitably follows.
Unlike the anti-Christian religious teachings of the Osama/Obama crowd, I don't say G. D. America, I say God help America--to get back to the Christianity which the USA was formed by, and to reverse the self-destructive death spiral we are in.
Rev 3:16 at 12:31PM on Apr 2nd 2008
43. The theory of Evolution should be taught in science class and the creation stories in a humanities class. I think this would solve the problem. Incidentally, what do you all think of efforts to clone the Woolly Mammoth or Saber Tooth Cat? I think we should not be reviving these animals. The environment is completely different now. Where would you place them? It could prove dangerous.
janesophie1 at 12:33PM on Apr 2nd 2008
44. brian, this is my response to you on the other blog in case you missed it. With that, be well today.
"it came to me what the deal is with atheist and being gay. its not christians who make them feel bad for theit sin. its the sn itself. they are weighted down by their sin. same as anyone else. they try hard to justify what they do because we humans have justice built into us by god. we all want to have a sense of being right. if there is no god right or wrong do not exist. so whats the fight about? its the weight of doing and being wrong. thats exactly what it is. and the price they pay is the continual fighting within and without to be justified. place the blame not on christians but on the weight of their sin bearing down on them. searing your concious just does not work. you need a savior to deliver you from sin. thus the weight is on jesus' shoulders" brian
Brother brian,
First, let me say thank you for your civil message. Also, it seems that your message was well thought out, and at least that is a start. This opens dialog where we can understand things. More importantly, we can try to get a grasp of what our world is now and how it's different from thousands of years ago.
My response to your well thought out message is as follow:
Just because someone doesn't believe in God, doesn't mean that they don't know right from wrong. Believing or Knowing God doesn't give the believers and knowers the authority to say so.
As you know, I am a believer that Gays are born the way they are. It's not a behavior or choice. Therefore I don't consider it wrong and also not a sin. But having sexual relations outside of or before marraige is a sin whether it is with someone of the same sex or not. That is clear.
In regards to Atheists, I was one for a long time. I didn't feel bad or think that I was wrong in any way. I helped others and I had tremendous meaning in my life.
God isn't here to give you meaning. If you think so, you are mistaken. God is here because God is here. That's all there is to it.
Believing that you go somewhere after you die if you follow the rules accordingly should not give you added meaning.
Life in itself is meaningful. We find Love, we have kids, we try to make a difference. Knowing God can your cause with these things, but not believing in or Knowing God will not hurt your cause either.
That's my take on it, and I am certainly open to dialog on the issues.
Botts at 12:45PM on Apr 2nd 2008
45. Fl Chick,
Sorry it took so long to respond.
For you starting out, the NSRV is good. It closely follows the United Bible Societies' third or fourth edition of the Greek New Testament.
The publisher of this text, United Bible Societies (UBS), is an association of Bible societies from five countries: The American Bible Society, The National Bible Society of Scotland, the Württemberg Bible Institute (now called the German Bible Society), the Netherlands Bible Society, and the British and Foreign Bible Society. The association was created in 1955 for the purpose of producing this text, and it now manages international Bible publication and distribution operations which in the past had been performed chiefly by the British and Foreign Bible Society.
The UBS edition was designed to meet the practical needs of translators sponsored by the member Bible societies, and so its apparatus presents the various readings of the manuscripts only in places where a choice between certain well-attested readings will have an important affect upon translation. For each of these places the reading of the text is graded A, B, C, or D according to whether the reading was adopted by the editors with certainty, near certainty, with difficulty, or with great difficulty. For the convenience of translators a punctuation apparatus is given below the textual apparatus, showing how the text is punctuated in several other texts and versions. Beneath that, cross-references are given together with specification of the words and phrases to which they refer. The text is set in paragraphs and larger sections, and supplied with section headings in English.
For you, it's necessary to get as close to the Greek Texts as possible without being confused.
New Revised Standard Version is better than the Revised Standard Version because they made an effort to get closer to the Greek Texts and with less agendas.
Any Bible is difficult, because the people over the Translators have agendas. Most of us only speak English, so we read these verses at face value and are trusting that the translations are as close to correct as possible. Unfortunately in most versions, this isn't the case.
Botts at 12:35PM on Apr 2nd 2008